A challenge in the baking industry is to secure consistent baked goods (e.g., bread) quality regardless of the quality of the flour used. Flour quality can vary depending on the grain harvested due to variety of factors, such as, the climate and/or soil. Flour quality is standardized (i.e., quality is evaluated and/or improved) by at least two distinct locations in the process stream of converting harvested grain into flour and then into a flour based product (e.g., bread). First, flour is initially standardized at the flour mills/flour improvers following the process of converting grain into flour in a process called flour correction. Second, flour received directly or indirectly from the flour mills/flour improvers is then improved/specialized by the bread improvers/bakery. The quality of flour desired by the flour mills/flour improvers as compared to the bread improvers/bakeries varies significantly. On the one hand, a flour mill/flour improver aims to produce a minimum “standard” flour suitable for trading the flour in the market. By comparison, the bread improvers/bakery prepare more “specialized,” high quality flours for direct production of the flour based baked products, often adding additional “bread improvers” (e.g., enzymes, malt flour, and flavor/coloring agents). In addition, highly specialized flour compositions may be prepared to give the desired end product (e.g., bread, baguette, bun, rolls, pizza crust, pretzel, multigrain, dark grain, cake.) the specific qualities desirable or unique to such end product (e.g., color, texture, flavor.).
The quality of flour is generally evaluated at the flour mills by the protein content, the moisture and the ash content of the flour as standard parameters. However, in addition to these standard parameters, the quality of flour is also often evaluated by the “falling number” (FN) of the flour or a similar parameters, e.g. peak viscosity of amylogram, which measures the alpha-amylase activity present in the flour. The falling number is measured using a starch viscosity assay and has an inverse relationship with the alpha-amylase activity present in the grain or flour. Thus, the higher the alpha-amylase activity, the lower the falling number, and vice-versa.
The falling number method and similar assays are used to assess flour quality because a certain amount of alpha-amylase is necessary in flour to provide the fermentation rate in order to obtain good baking results. The alpha-amylase present in flour breaks down the starch in the flour to provide dectrins and finally maltose which is fermentable sugar necessary for the yeast fermentation process used in baking. The amount of alpha-amylase activity in the flour can have a direct impact on the quality of bread produced. Thus, when the alpha-amylase activity is optimal, a high volume bread with a good texture and crumb structure, bright crust colure, enhanced flavor will result. However, if the alpha-amylase activity is too high, a sticky and wet bread crumb and low volume will result. Conversely, if the alpha-amylase activity is too low, the flour absorbs less water, and a dry bread crumb with a low volume will result.
Poor quality flour is often corrected by the flour mills/flour improvers and/or by bread improvers/bakery. For example, poor quality flour may be corrected by blending grain lots having different qualities to obtain a desired flour quality in the blend, e.g., blending flours having different falling numbers to achieve the desired falling number in the blend. Flours with too high value of a falling number are also often corrected by the supplementation of the flour with malted flour or malt. Malt flour supplementation, however, has significant disadvantages, including, e.g., difficulty in obtaining consistent results (e.g., due to dosing variation and standardization issues), difficulty in handling the malt flour, potential contamination of the malt flour (such as, by microorganisms and insects) and potential high costs associated with production, storage and/or transportation of malt flour.
The use of exogenous grain enzymes (i.e., enzymes not naturally (endogenous) present in the flour grain), have also been used to correct flour. Examples of such enzymes include fungal alpha-amylases, such as the FUNGAMYL products available from Novozymes NS and BAKEZYME P 300 BG product available from DSM. Although avoiding many of the downsides of malt flour supplementation or mixing of grain lots, enzymes have also experienced a number of drawbacks in the industry, e.g., enzymes have not been as effective in flour correction as malt flour supplementation when using the falling number parameter for determining flour quality.
Thus, there remains a need in the art to provide improved, consistent flour correction or to meet flour specifications compositions and methods.